232 Comments

The paradise unrestrained capitalism offers gets ever closer... For pardon the expression the parasites. For us hahaha no.

Sidebar: apparently there’s also an issue of travel books on Amazon written by AI, again using actual authors’ names. Of course, using AI to fake Dr. Chuck Tingle works would be going much too far...

My dotard theory is that, at least for the near to midterm future, AI won’t and can’t be better than the people developing it. OTOH, that day will come.

A second dotard theory: all the major tech developments have happened and now the VCs are desperate to push anything, no matter how crappy, to try and score again. So crap gets hyped and here we are.

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Well, Dr Chuck has gone mosta the way there already, so...

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No, no, no. My point is that AI faking Dr. Tingle’s works is going too far.

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I'm hip, but doncha think he's mosta the way to too far already? I mean, haven't read him, but the descriptions suggest he's tryin' hard...

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From what I’ve read of his work, the “books” are kind like *very* extended jokes.

But, you know, you let AI forge a Tingle work, next thing AI will be rewriting the Bible. Gotta shut it down it can still be done.

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No way an AI could come up with something as bugfuck crazy as the Bible.

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Now that you mention it, I’d like to see what AI would do to Leviticus and it might be able to resolve the contradictions in the four gospels.

OTOH, maybe it would just produce gibberish.

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Someone should write a novel (or whatever) about a cult that forms around an AI-generated holy book.

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Nope, not going to be ashamed for calling them parasites, because they sure as shit don't hesitate a second to call those receiving public services parasites.

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Pounded in the ass by an AI writing fake books in my name would be an interesting book for Dr. Tingle to write

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Yeah...

South Dakota: Too Much Fun!

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Hey, it's rally week. So, Show Us Your Tits!!!!

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Oooh, isn't Antifa coming to cause trouble? Like they don't do every year?

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I don't know, Lita Ford is playing and she often scares off antifa and uncle fa too

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We were just there a couple weeks ago. But I guess you live there…

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I read about this author’s complaints to Amazon and I’m glad this time the issue was resolved in her favor. But it seems obvious this will happen again to others, especially ebook writers who flourish on Amazon. I can also see complaints a book is fraudulent being used as a means of harassment, causing an author’s legitimate product to be flagged as possible AI.

Also, I can’t help recalling a simpler time when we were merely worried automation would replace physical labor and displace those workers, as opposed to this endeavor to render human thought and creativity itself redundant.

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I’m sure we can solve this problem if we just teach more STEM.

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STEM HARDER

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Hey some of us are doing that already

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STEM the tide of science illiteracy!

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I used to dream of being a writer. Wanted to be the next Asimov or Heinlein or, in college, Harlan Ellison. But the publishing industry is total shit now, there's too much competition, bookstores are struggling, and now this.

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Now, now...if we all simply AI a little harder, I'm certain that, together, we can achieve something brackish and aflame.

Note: AI might or might not have been consulted in the composition of that last sentence.

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Makes sense to me!

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Maybe AI is responsible for those logic and fact challenged op-ed pieces in the NYT and WaPo, like that Jack Goldsmith exercise in both-siderism. Or perhaps “I didn’t write those racist tweets, AI did!” will become the way assholes like Hanania excuse their exposed opinions.

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Seems like every day is a good day to have cancelled your Times subscription months ago.

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Now we see why the newspapers hide their stuff behind paywalls: as they slide rightward, the only ones with the money to get to the articles will be the ones they're written to appeal to.

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Paywall Street Journal, then. . .

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The WSJ should be paywalled, sealed in a barrel of concrete, and fired into the sun.

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So much for the tolerant left!

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Damn I wish I'd said that.

2 marks.

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Such an unfortunate time to prosecute Trump. Yes, he tried to destroy the very foundation of our society, but not now. This is the time for thoughts and prayers.

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Thoughts 1, Prayers 0

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This whole shitshow is based on the fact that a significant fraction of America is more concerned with Prayers than Thoughts.

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The people trying to destroy our system will lose faith in the system!

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No faith to lose.

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Fascism's just another word for...

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No woman, no cry

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I can't recall who, but a couple of rightwing dweebs have been complaining on twitter that they have tried to prompt AI to generate racist or homophobic rants, but have been thwarted by safeguards in the program. Now, I'm sure they'll find a way to overcome this, but it appears for now not only reality but artificial intelligence has a liberal bias, LOL.

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Point of order: it’s Xitter now, and yes, pronounce the X as /sh/.

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I will call it "X" at the same time I start referring to 6th as Avenue of the Americas, which is to say, never, LOL.

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Not acknowledging the X makes Feline Musk cry. /RodFlanders

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Of course, there is nothing to be learned from the fact that there are some things that even AI won't do.

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Well, they did the first time they tried to train AI using the internet. But the AI writers learned this was unacceptable

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Have we ever ACTUALLY seen David Brooks? Or Hugh Hewitt?

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I thought David Brooks too. But his stuff is so idiosyncratically DB. Ergo, he's already a replicant.

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To be fair, most of Brooks’s time is spent lamenting the corrosive social effects of deli meats.

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Well, Christ - if the meat's corrosive, just don't eat it! And don't staple baloney to your forehead. It ain't rocket surgery.

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It's so sad to have a friend who can't pronounce prosciutto.

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David Brooks' birthday is this week

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We all celebrate on Fuck an Intern Friday.

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I think his current wife was a research assistant rather than an intern

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Opportunity Knox!

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Neither new nor AI-specific. There's a "Stephen King" who publishes Kindle books. I assume it's his legal name and that's how he gets away with it. His writing is . . . well, nothing to write home about, so I'd bet the people he suckers make up most of his sales.

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August 9, 2023
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"I cleaned about 10k titles like this out on our library’s instance of hoopla bit they still pop up." Please tell me more. I guess I misunderstood Hoopla, which I thought was like Kanopy. You mean you have a measure of control over the offering? And that they actually stock fakes?

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I hope Morgue for Whores wasn't written by an AI

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You can't be serious

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I don't know, I don't think I have ever tried.

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Too close to the bone?

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We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, 'What is real?' Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.

- Phillip K Dick

High on acid, 50 years or so ago

" Everything you know is wrong"

Firesign Theatre. 49 years ago.

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“There’s something wrong here”

David Lynch at multiple ominous points in Twin Peaks

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" where we're from , the birds sing a pretty song..."

- Little Man

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At first I thought you meant this guy, and I was so excited to see him name-checked on REBID http://www.littlemanmusic.com

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A worthy pairing.

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Marc Bolan tribute- guy has good taste!

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Why did they have to specify Papoon was Not Insane? They Knew. The GOP has become the National Surrealist Party. And it's amusing "Everything You Know Is Wrong" is based on folks like Art Bell, who's partially responsible for the conspiracy-laden reality we now inhabit.

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"I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE COMET!"

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All Hail Discordia!

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Unfortunately I had a hot dog today, and, as it's not Friday, I violated Erisian doctrine.

Which is *exactly what she wants*.

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Like "Idiocracy", every time I listen to Firesign these days it's more documentary than satirical. I mean, seriously, WTFF?

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Listening to "Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death" hit really differently during the first COVID weeks.

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The Firesign Theatre weren't just funny and they weren't just perceptive in their satire of what they saw around them. They were incredibly prescient.

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Hostility to the humanities in action:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/shakespeare-cut-florida-schools-desantis-agenda-1234802500/

“Schools in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa Bay and the surrounding area, are mostly assigning excerpts by the English language’s most famous writer. The schools previously required students to read two of Shakespeare’s novels or plays, in their entirety, per year.

The decision comes as educators must prepare students for a new set of state exams that cover a wide variety of subject matter, and also, “in consideration of the law,” according to a school district spokesperson, which means teaching it could open educators up to disciplinary measures if a parent were to file a complaint.

The “law” in question is the new Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits teaching any content that is sexual in nature.“

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Ah. So no sex among the humanity then?

Where'd all these damn storks come from alla sudden??!!

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Just make the law vague enough and people will restrict themselves, more than you could have ever hoped for.

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And copsgo "oh, yeah – THAT's a good law!"

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Well, that's just classic fashy hijinks. Make a vague law that nobody can ever be QUITE sure they're NOT violating, then allow individuals to interpret the law according to their own whim, while profiting off bribery. And the security forces never NEED an excuse to crack skulls. W's all round, really.

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The naughty bits are just the excuse. Now that dotards are Saving the Children by taking over school boards and joining Moms For Liberty, they can carve out more time for Jettysin's private quarterbacking lessons by eliminating all that stupid Shakespeare they had to read in high school, and look how much they use that.

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They should really teach Jacobean revenge tragedies. Now there are some life lessons you can use!

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How old is Jettysin? (What I really mean is "How much time do I have before a pack of Jettysins shows up on my class roster?") I mean, I just barely survived the Kaitlyn/Kaylee onslaught of 2016.

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Do they make the football players go to class in Badgerland?

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Badgers? I don't have no badgers. We don't need no badgers! I don't have to show you any steenking badgers!!!

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Never gotten close enough to a badger to smell one, but I can well imagine.

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I'll take that as a "no."

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Hut 1, Hut 2, Brute´!

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et tu Bern

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You will find me in my hut

I will be the substack nut

We'll have a lotta little nonsense jollies

Then realize it's all just follies...

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"...two of Shakespeare's novels..."

Um...

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Huckleberry and Juliet.

The Merchant of Wuthering Heights.

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Green Eggs and Hamlet.

The Tragedy of King Richard the Third Policeman

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Tom Jones and Cressida

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The Merchant of Venus

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You want arms with that?

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Night of the Avenging Blowfish

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Are these the same "Classical Education" schools that banned Michelangelo's David?

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Filthy penii.

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I've heard it gets cleaned regularly by someone with white gloves, a bottle of distilled water and a Q-tip.

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Stay out of my house

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'corporations don’t give a shit, and indeed are “already memorizing the platitudes necessary to wave away the critics.” '

This right here is why IT ALL WORKS. Il fascisti wingtipo pre-select the outcome via the handwave of despair.

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In a way, this is just the next step in something that's been going on for ages. I have written or co-authored three books. But the last time I checked, Google says I've written FOUR books. The fourth was, indeed, "written" by me: A publisher I used to work for compiled a bunch of articles I had written over the years and cranked it out as a book with my name on it. No royalties for me, and not even a courtesy note to say "Hey! We just published this doorstop with your name on it."

While the AI thing adds another dimension, there are legions of publishers who have been buying articles from freelancers and forcing those writers to sign "all-rights" contracts. As AI advances, I wonder which genius publisher is going to be the first to slip in a clause that says the author no longer owns the rights to their own name and the publisher can generate AI titles endlessly and claim the turd was written by "award-winning author Derelict."

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At least you can point to it with a perplexed and baleful glare and say "Hey That's MY doorstop!"

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I’m hoping that would be an unenforceable contract, but then I remember that the Supreme Clerics have revealed that the law is actually Calvinball, so who knows?

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I'm assuming it would be upheld under the long-standing legal principle "We have a fuckton of lawyers and you don't, loser."

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It is, sadly, perfectly enforceable. On the plus side, though, I don't give a fuck. It's all pieces I wrote 30+ years ago, and nobody's injuring themselves running out to buy my deathless prose from 1985. I was wildly overpaid back then (like, triple what I should have been making), so I got my money up front.

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